Toyota reports booming sales but stays cautious on profit because of various costs

TOKYO (AP) - Japan's top automaker Toyota reported record sales for the fiscal year through March on Thursday, but its profit for the latest quarter faltered partly because of a certification scandal.

Toyota Motor Corp.'s January-March net profit totaled 664.6 billion yen ($4.6 billion), down from 997.6 billion yen the same period a year ago. Quarterly sales totaled 12.36 trillion yen ($85.9 billion), up from 11 trillion yen.

Toyota has been strengthening the testing system of its vehicles after acknowledging wide-ranging fraudulent testing, including the use of inadequate or outdated data in crash tests, incorrect testing of airbag inflation and engine power checks.

Akio Toyoda, Toyota's chairman and the grandson of the automaker's founder, has apologized. The wrongdoing did not affect the safety of vehicles already on roads, which include the popular Corolla subcompact and Lexus luxury vehicles.

But the scandal has been a major embarrassment for a manufacturer whose brand has been synonymous for decades with quality and attention to detail.

For the fiscal year through March, Toyota reported a 4.77 trillion yen ($33 billion) profit, down from 4.94 trillion yen the previous fiscal year.

Annual sales reached a record 48 trillion yen ($333.6 billion), up from 45 trillion yen. Toyota is forecasting sales of 48.5 trillion yen ($337 billion) for the fiscal year through March 2026.

Its profit forecast was less bullish, citing costs to meet carbon neutrality demands, as well as the impact of President Donald Trump's U.S. tariffs on operating income, which was factored in tentatively at 180 billion yen ($1.3 billion), according to Toyota. That estimate covers April and May, meaning it could grow in coming months.

Consolidated vehicle sales for the fiscal year through March totaled 9.36 million vehicles, down slightly from 9.44 million vehicles the previous fiscal year.

Cost reduction and marketing efforts worked as pluses countering the negatives, including the production shutdown spanning several months in the U.S. due to quality issues, Toyota officials said.

Toyota also said the portion of electric vehicles it was selling was steadily growing. Sometimes Toyota has been criticized as falling behind in the global move toward EVs, partly because it has an extensive lineup of other kinds of green cars, including hybrids.